


Warden's Choices

by deathwailart



Series: Rhiannon Amell [10]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Character Study, Choices, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 04:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before the Landsmeet, the Warden looks back on her choices.</p><p>(Please see end notes for more details.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warden's Choices

And it isn't right that she should have the ability to change so much. Little mage let out of the tower for the first time since she arrived and suddenly she is influencing politics and Ferelden at once. The world so huge around her and she will never forget how she hesitated, high on the hill overlooking Lake Calenhad, leaving Kinloch Hold behind her as the sun rose, glittering on Duncan's armour and it took her breath away.  
  
"Rhiannon?" He'd paused, shielded his eyes from the sun when she'd looked at him and nodded.  
"It was the only home I'd ever known, is it wrong that I'm afraid?"  
"You will be a Grey Warden," there had been a shadow in his eyes and she knows now that he'd thought of the Joining, if she would die clutching her throat, "our lives are fraught with fear and danger and one day, you will become used to it."  
  
So she had left Lake Calenhad behind and moved on, followed Duncan's lead and tried to sleep and come to terms with his new life thrust upon her.  
  
She remembers Ostagar, remembers making friends for the first time, feeling a Mabari hound (so big, she'd trembled trying to help it because she'd only seen cats and rats in the flesh) snuffle at her fingers. The thrill going through her when she explored the Wilds and the damp stink of bog and rotten wood, wolves descending with the Darkspawn but she hadn't had time to feel scared. The newness had overwhelmed her so greatly. It had been an adventure, like something out of a book even if the Darkspawn had been more monstrous than the Chant of Light had made them seem because her imagination had been good but these were _beyond_ imagining. Morrigan and Flemeth had been excited until it had turned nasty, until Ostagar had been ashes and sickened ruin, she and Alistair overwhelmed and so very, very alone.  
  
Lothering stands out only because she gained companions. Lothering was the final calm before the storm. It brought her Leliana and her secrets and Sten. Sten was a test of his own but gaining his trust, his respect, it was worth it. She will never have a friend quite like him again in her life.  
  
In Redcliffe her personal loyalties with Jowan (oh _Jowan_ , she thinks, remembers how it used to be, the pair of them attached at the hip) were the main sticking point; she couldn't let them kill him and there wasn't time to go to Lake Calenhad. They would have been delayed then too after all because the Tower was in crisis. She's not proud of what she did but she did what she had to, with what she had to hand, to try to end the damn Blight. A woman still died for her son, it's not something she's ever going to forget and it sits uneasily, lead weight in her stomach. Alistair will still hate her for that but it's not like he pitched in really. He said how important it was to see Eamon and when they got to camp, before she had time to try to digest it and come to terms with what she'd done (and she is under no illusions, it was her choice, she made the decision, she's the one who shoulders it) he'd rounded on her. (And now Jowan is back in the tower with a sunburst on his forehead and she wishes she had just set him free for good or plunged a dagger in his chest. Or she will, when she finally goes back. Because she will, she just doesn't know that yet.)  
  
The Circle at least she saved. She would never doom her fellow mages but Cullen broke her heart, shattered it into a million pieces. Oh she knew he was a Templar and that he believed but she remembers how he used to blush around her, his eyes following her for reasons other than just keeping an eye on his charge. The kiss after her Harrowing, the unyielding press of armour and mail through her robes and his soft lips and soft hands. She still has his amulet. She can't bear to part with it, even now. She needed that after Redcliffe. Wynne who had smiled and had been a sort of balm to the group, helping to soothe rough edges and that little edge of triumph, the first break she'd caught after Lothering that let her think _I can do this. I can stop the Blight._  
  
What did she know about dwarves? Orzammar was the first time she'd ever met one save Bodahn and Sandal and all she wanted was to stop the Blight, to gain allies and suddenly she was thrust into choosing a king, into delving down into the Deep Roads, told to find this Anvil, to find this Paragon, to bring them a crown. And then this moral dilemma with Branka who had done things they all found abhorrent and Caridin who wanted to destroy what Branka had left to find and her decision had tasted like ash in her mouth. She'd chosen Caridin, had destroyed the Anvil and had killed Branka (it still feels ridiculous, to have killed the wife of a companion in front of him) and it had felt...she still doesn't know. Hespith's words that stay with her and she wonders what happens to female Wardens when it's their turn to go, if one of the others has to kill them in case they turn. Somehow that doesn't haunt her quite so much as wondering whether or not she has made life better or worse for the dwarves with the king she has chosen. The other choice was killed anyway. She was glad to be out of the doom and gloom to the bite of the Frostback Mountains.  
  
Again with the Dalish. She gave them peace but she doesn't know if it was right, doesn't know if maybe vengeance was fairer; she was a human, an outsider, the race that brought about the downfall of the elves, of course they were hostile. But it brought an end to it all. They seemed happy. They seemed to be at peace. No one seemed morally outraged by her choices, or not enough to tell her off at camp while she just stood there, trying to let it wash over her.  
  
Denerim at least was good for picking up some odd jobs here and there, learning more about this fool's errand to save Eamon, that last thing even though the need was dire and now she's glad she waited. She needed to prepare for that. For the rust of blood in her nose, how off the place seemed, the attacks, the way the children spoke. Foolishly (and she'd almost thought she'd lost the ability to be foolish) she'd believed that fighting her way to the right place would be enough. That gutting a bloody high dragon would be the end of it but nothing had quite readied her for the spectre of Jowan, same sad smile on his long face and she'd wanted to cry as he'd spoken (even if it wasn't him, it's the last time she will ever hear him the way he was) to her before her companions had been addressed. _There are no ghosts_ , she'd told herself and she doesn't know if she'll ever quite understand what happened there but answering riddles, stepping through flames – she hadn't believed even through all that. It had taken being there. Before the urn. To touch something that pure, that selfless as the words of her companions became nothing but a quiet hum as she reached out to take some for herself, a little piece of a woman who had lived a life that made her quest so far seem entirely inadequate, as if she herself was being measured somehow and found to be unworthy and wanting.  
  
After that it had been another blur. And now they're in Denerim once more, a flurry involving being locked in Fort Drakon with Alistair of all things and having to woo a guard in not much more than her knickers to get them both out. She wishes now that she'd managed to talk to him afterwards. To laugh. They have precious little to laugh about now.  
  
There's no _time_. There's no time to sit and read – she had so much time for that before in the tower, tome after tome, late into the night or as late as the Templars allowed an apprentice to stay up reading by the flickering light of a tallow candle until her eyes burned, tightness radiating out from her temples. Cullen always used to say it'd make her look old before her time and she'd laughed and boldly poked at his worry lines, deep grooves etched in his forehead.  
  
She'll never be that girl again. It hurts to realise that.  
  
There will be no more balancing the opinions of her party, she realises now too. Always a trial, weighing up who to take where with her based on what they believed, what they stood for. Morrigan favoured survival of the fittest, Alistair wanted her to lead but jumped the second she did something he didn't approve of, Sten wanted a purpose, Zevran had hidden depths beyond the easy promises, Leliana was religious but hid something too, Oghren drunk but solid and sturdy, Wynne mothered her but wanted her to be selfless. At least her dog loved and still loves her and just wags his stumpy little tail no matter what she says, uncaring if she hides her sobs in his (admittedly smelly) fur. She did something for all of them. Found swords and lost loves and apprentices, tried to help a lost sister, fought Flemeth, fought Antivan Crows alongside another, fought an Orlesian bard to give a friend a chance at a fresh slate, gathered gifts and trinkets along the way that made her think of them and it was always worth it for the smiles, the little remarks and how utterly surprised they all seemed. She never wanted anything; they were all enough.  
  
Now she sits in Denerim, her hound snoring at the foot of the bed, her stomach churning with wine she shared with Riordan and Alistair, asking more about the Wardens, devouring every scrap he offers because she doesn't want to die not knowing. Because she thinks she will die. The archdemon is coming, but first there is the Landsmeet to attend to, more politics to play, someone to place on the throne and Loghain to face yet again after the betrayal, after he sent his men after her and Alistair.  
  
She rubs at her eyes and lies back, arms high above her head. It's not as if there weren't good moments. There were. This is a life she never thought she would have and even though she's not devout, she prays to the Maker and to Andraste that none of the people she's grown to love will die, that they'll all get together when the battle ends and down Oghren's foul-smelling homebrew, bloodied and aching but alive. It's a pleasant last thought as her dreams close in, the world dark and small, the hazy shapes of the Fade crowding around the corners of her vision where she will wander aimlessly, chasing shadows, faces she knows flitting by her too quickly for her to catch, voices echoing. She anchors herself with one hand around the worn wood and leather of her staff, the other rubbing the velvet of her Mabari's ear.  
  
She wills it to be morning. To be the final battle. All she is now is the sum of her choices and she has so few left to make. She wants one last meal around a campfire made of Alistair's horrendous 'Ferelden grey mystery meat' with Leliana singing only to be drowned out by Oghren, Wynne smiling and taking care of them all as she makes potions and poultices, Zevran's lewd jokes, Sten's quiet remarks and how he always sneaks her dog a few treats, the quiet appearances by Morrigan, drawn to watch them even if there is no contribution.  
  
If, no _when_ , this is all said and done, she vows that they'll have one last night around a campfire, ignoring how the dark and the weariness and the sickening pestilence of the Blight close in around them. They will have a night for being alive, the only ones who really understand just what they'll have accomplished.  
  
It's enough to chase the suspicious shadows from her dreams for once.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on one of my playthroughs and the decisions my Warden made in the course of it.  
> No romance mentioned because I wanted it to be more generic although on this file, the romance was Zevran.  
> Shale isn't mentioned because I don't have her DLC sadly.


End file.
